The art of quitting

You can lose weight fast after 40, but the faster the scale drops, the more likely you're losing muscle and water along with the fat, and that sets you up to regain the weight as fat. In this solo episode, Coach Allan answers the questions people ask most about fast weight loss: the fastest way to lose weight, whether to take a GLP-1 like Ozempic or Zepbound, whether weight-loss surgery makes sense, how much to expect from diet alone, whether you have to count calories, why weight loss stalls, and how to know it's working. His angle is simple: whichever route you take, protect your muscle with resistance training, eat whole food with protein and fiber first, and judge progress by more than the scale. Time Stamps: 03:15 What's the fastest way to lose weight? 04:37 70 pounds in 2 months for a wedding 06:21 Why crash diets cost you muscle 07:16 Why yo-yo dieting is so dangerous after 40 08:42 The three fast routes: drugs, surgery, and diet and lifestyle 13:12 Should you take a GLP-1 like Ozempic or Zepbound? 15:32 GLP-1s, muscle loss, and DEXA scans 18:48 Should you get weight-loss surgery? 21:55 How much should you lose with diet alone? 24:37 2,500 calories of whole food versus a bag of Cheetos 27:42 Losing weight without counting calories 31:57 Martha the elliptical and the calorie burn myth 35:13 Protein and fiber first 37:10 Why weight loss is slow and why it stalls 38:41 Water, food volume, hormones, and the scale 43:08 66 pounds of fat lost, 11 pounds of muscle gained 45:24 When a plateau is really a plateau 47:19 How to know it's working 48:25 Fit for task, not a vanity number Links: Questions about this episode, or interested in coaching: email Coach Allan at [email protected]  

Your brain has its own immune system, and whether those immune cells protect your brain or attack it depends largely on your metabolic health, which you control with what you eat, how you move, how you sleep, and even the air you breathe. Dr. David Perlmutter is a board-certified neurologist and six-time New York Times bestselling author of Grain Brain, Brain Maker, Drop Acid, and now Brain Defenders. He explains how microglia, the brain's immune cells, shift from brain defenders to brain destroyers when your metabolism breaks down, and why that shift sits underneath Alzheimer's, Parkinson's, multiple sclerosis, and even depression. The conversation covers the diet pillars that keep blood sugar in check, why you need both cardio and strength training, how poor air quality and poor sleep feed inflammation, and the tests that show where you stand long before your memory slips. He closes with his three strategies for wellness: have fun, stay socially connected, and take charge of your own health destiny.   Time Stamps: 05:47 How Brain Defenders ties together Grain Brain, Brain Maker, and Drop Acid 08:14 Immunometabolism: why metabolism affects every organ 10:08 The gut microbiome and the brain 11:12 How AI is connecting the dots across specialties 14:54 Microglia: the brain's own immune system 19:12 How metabolism flips microglia from defenders to destroyers 21:37 Type 2 diabetes, blood sugar, and choosing your diet 22:48 Fiber, polyphenols, protein, and dietary fat 25:56 The Mediterranean diet and the Ornish and Tanzi study 27:40 Cardio vs. strength training, myokines, and BDNF 30:50 Flexibility and balance training to avoid injury 32:21 Air quality, PM2.5, and air purifiers 34:23 Why sleep matters for your brain 40:34 Sleep latency and melatonin timing 42:11 Tests to track your metabolic and brain health 44:53 Vitamin D and K2 46:38 3 strategies to get and stay well Links: Dr. David Perlmutter: drperlmutter.com Brain Defenders (book and ordering bonuses): braindefenders.com 40+ Fitness coaching (2 slots open, 16 weeks plus 2 freeze weeks): email [email protected]  

The way to recover stronger from surgery is to build the foundation before you ever get to the operating room: go in with as much muscle as you can keep, feed the repair with protein, and get your sleep, stress, and inflammation under control, then layer on advanced tools only with a doctor's guidance. Zora Benhamou is a gerontologist, healthy aging coach, and host of the Hack My Age podcast. After years of fighting osteoarthritis with injections, diet, and rehab, she had both hips replaced 12 weeks apart. She walks through how she kept her muscle with blood flow restriction bands, what she ate to rebuild bone around the implant, which peptides and other biohacks she tried, and why none of them matter without the basics. She closes with her three strategies for aging well: nurture your network, learn to breathe through your nose, and understand your hormones. Time Stamps: 05:05 From looking good to longevity: becoming a gerontologist 08:40 Osteoarthritis vs. osteoporosis and trying to avoid surgery 10:06 PRP, hyaluronic acid, and pentosan polysulfate 15:34 Two hip replacements, 12 weeks apart 18:00 Keeping muscle with KAATSU blood flow restriction bands 20:29 Protein, collagen, and bone-building nutrition for recovery 22:01 The anti-inflammatory diet 23:09 Sleep, stress, and hormones in recovery 26:25 Advanced recovery tools and the Wolverine stack peptides 31:57 Methylene blue 34:02 The biohacking pyramid: foundation first 36:31 Test one thing at a time 38:52 Wellness strategy 1: nurture your network 41:05 Wellness strategy 2: functional nose breathing 43:24 Wellness strategy 3: understand your hormones and protect your bones Links: Zora Benhamou: hackmyage.com (website, podcast, and all her social channels) Hack My Age podcast: hackmyage.com 40+ Fitness coaching (3 slots open, 16 weeks plus 2 freeze weeks): email [email protected]  

Better sleep after 40 comes from building the right daily rhythms, not from trying harder at bedtime. Mollie McGlocklin, creator of Sleep Is a Skill, makes the case that sleep is a learnable skill, and that forcing it or chasing a perfect score on your tracker usually makes it worse. Mollie went through acute insomnia while traveling overseas and left doctor after doctor with sleeping pills and no real guidance. In this episode she explains what sleep latency and sleep efficiency tell you, why falling asleep the second your head hits the pillow can be a red flag, which tracker numbers you can trust (and why deep sleep and REM aren't among them), when a nap helps and when it hurts, what to do when good sleep habits aren't enough, and why sleep really begins in the morning. Time Stamps: 03:42 Why you can't force sleep 05:07 Mollie's insomnia story 06:17 Sleeping pills and the case for CBT-I 09:07 Sleep as a skill, not a sleeper type 11:36 Sleep latency: when falling asleep fast is a red flag 13:18 Sleep efficiency and nighttime wakeups 14:51 Binaural beats, white noise, and sleep sounds 17:28 Sleep stages and why tracker data misleads 18:37 Blood oxygen averages and missed sleep apnea 20:12 Track trends in one device: HRV and heart rate 23:35 How wearables spotted COVID early 25:14 Why sleep apnea testing should be repeated 27:18 Naps and the insomnia exception 28:49 The caffeine nap 31:50 Shift workers and longer naps 33:37 When sleep hygiene isn't enough 35:15 CBT-I, ACT, and circadian entrainment 38:52 The health of your word 39:09 Sleep begins in the morning 40:48 Loneliness, relationships, and sleep 41:29 What hunter-gatherers teach us about sleep Links: Sleep Is a Skill (newsletter, podcast, and coaching): https://sleepisaskill.com The Wellness Roadmap: https://amzn.to/3U1xEdn  

Pain is built by the brain, and because the brain can change, pain can change. That is the core of what pain psychologist Dr. Rachel Zoffness lays out in this episode. Pain is never all in your head, but it is never only in the body part that hurts either. It is biopsychosocial: biology, psychology, and your social world all turn the volume up or down. Dr. Zoffness is faculty at the UCSF School of Medicine, lectures on pain science at Stanford, and is the author of Tell Me Where It Hurts: The New Science of Pain and How to Heal. She walks through her three core truths about pain, why 96% of medical schools teach no dedicated pain science, the pain dial (how stress, mood, and attention change what you feel), and the pain recipe: writing down what makes a bad pain day so you can build the opposite. She closes with the three things that matter most for a healthy life with pain: movement, social health, and balance. Time Stamps: 03:48 Why pain is coming for all of us 07:56 Core truths 1 and 2: pain is the brain's opinion, and the brain can change 10:40 Core truth 3: pain is always biopsychosocial 16:05 A hammer and a bigger hammer: why medicine reaches for pills and surgery 19:41 The sociological domain: loneliness, trauma, and the 80% overlap 23:06 Acute vs. chronic pain, and the opioid lie 26:40 The pain dial: how stress and anxiety turn the volume up 27:46 Mood and attention change pain volume 32:03 Your high pain recipe, your low pain recipe, and painsomnia 36:11 Movement first, pain reduction later 37:35 Loneliness, cortisol, and social health 41:12 You have more power over your pain than you've been told Links: Dr. Rachel Zoffness (free resources page): https://www.zoffness.com Tell Me Where It Hurts: The New Science of Pain and How to Heal Instagram: @therealdoczoff Fit for Task Muscle and Strength Workshop: https://40plusfitness.com/muscle  

You can still build muscle after 40, and the research says you can build it at close to the same rate as a 25-year-old. What has to change is not how hard you train, it is how strategically you train, eat, and recover. Alain Gonzalez is a fitness coach, author, and the creator of the largest YouTube channel dedicated to men's fitness over 40. He has spent more than 17 years helping men build muscle and get their health back, and his book is Muscle After 40. In this conversation we walk through his four pillars of muscle growth: mindset, training, nutrition, and recovery. We cover why volume is the thing that has to change with age, why movement quality sits above everything else in the gym, how to order your nutrition so protein comes first, and why recovery is the pillar most people over 40 quietly skip. Time Stamps: 05:21 Why muscle matters as you age 07:08 The four pillars of muscle growth 08:30 Pillar one, mindset 09:39 Pillar two, training and volume 11:14 Movement quality comes first 15:24 Can you still build muscle in your 50s and 60s 18:06 The staircase model 19:18 Effort and training close to failure 20:37 How progressive overload really works 22:23 The nutrition staircase, protein first 24:10 Protein frequency after 40 24:47 Recomposition versus bulking and cutting 26:14 The recovery staircase 26:59 Sleep and chronic stress 28:49 Three strategies to get and stay well Links: Alain Gonzalez on YouTube: Muscle Monsters Alain's book, Muscle After 40: How to Build the Strongest, Most Jacked Body of Your Life: https://amzn.to/4cVbmAD Fit for Task Muscle and Strength Workshop, free and live Tuesday September 8th at 8:00 PM Eastern: https://40plusfitness.com/muscle Allan's book, The Wellness Roadmap: https://amzn.to/3U1xEdn  

Living longer is not the goal. Living better is, because the extra years most people are gaining are sick years, not good ones. In this solo episode, Coach Allan digs into the Global Burden of Disease study published in The Lancet Public Health, which found the gap between lifespan and healthspan grew from 8.8 years in 1990 to 10.7 years by 2023. That is nearly eleven years, about 15% of a life, spent sick and incapable at the end. He opens with a story from Puerto Vallarta, where an earthquake left a man in his early seventies stuck on the third floor because he did not have the leg strength to walk down the stairs, and had to tell his wife to go on without him. The earthquake did not cause that. It revealed it. Allan then walks through his own earthquake moment, a stage 3 kidney cancer diagnosis and the immunotherapy he is still going through, the five levers that actually close the gap, and why the retirement-account model of health is the wrong one. Time Stamps: 00:00 Lifespan versus healthspan, and the gap between them 05:58 Why the United States has the widest gap 10:02 Strength and stamina as non-negotiables 13:17 Purpose and relationships as the foundational why 17:23 Health deposits are not a retirement account 20:02 The Long Life Readiness Quiz   Links: Long Life Readiness Quiz (free, takes a couple of minutes): https://40plusfitness.com/gap The Wellness Roadmap by Allan Misner: https://amzn.to/3U1xEdn  

Relying only on low-impact exercise can leave you more fragile as you age, because your bones and connective tissue need impact to stay strong. Graham Tuttle, a coach, the author of Born to Sprint, and the self-styled Barefoot Sprinter, argues that sprinting, jumping, and throwing are the real markers of a healthy body at any age, and that stripping impact out of your training in the name of safety quietly erodes the very capacity it is meant to protect. In this conversation, Graham and Coach Allan get into why impact signals your bones and your brain that they are still needed, how training barefoot restores feedback and movement most of us have lost, the story of Graham coaching his own father to run again 15 years into a Parkinson's diagnosis, and his 10% rule for reintroducing impact safely when you are starting from badly out of shape. Time Stamps: 06:00 Trusting the body's natural design 07:44 Poor eyesight, lifting for looks, and losing body connection 12:27 Rethinking the reductionist physical-therapy model 13:42 Fascia, movement patterns, and the whole body 17:57 Why impact keeps the body and brain online 20:51 How the muscle system manages force 24:04 Physical limitation and how you perceive the world 30:23 Impact, hormones, bones, and the brain 32:56 His father's Parkinson's and rethinking fitness 35:55 Finding purpose and meaning in older age 39:44 Jeffy: starting from ground zero 41:12 The philosophy of sprinting 46:44 Using impact to shake things loose 48:25 Rebuilding movement patterns from the ground up 54:03 Sprinter swinging and plyometrics 55:01 Restoring the ability to sprint Links: Graham Tuttle's book, Born to Sprint: Unlock Your Natural Strength, Speed, and Athleticism: https://amzn.to/4xzlCqa Graham's website: https://thebarefootsprinter.com/ Graham on YouTube, Facebook, LinkedIn, TikTok, and Instagram: The Barefoot Sprinter Coach Allan's book, The Wellness Roadmap: https://amzn.to/3U1xEdn  

Mobility, your ability to move a joint through its range using your own strength, matters more for men over 40 than passive flexibility, and rebuilding it is what lets you keep squatting, lifting, and moving through daily life without pain. In this episode I talk with Dean Pohlman, founder of Man Flow Yoga and author of Yoga Fitness for Men, about why sitting all day leaves most of us with mobility deficits that gym work alone won't fix. We get into the real difference between flexibility and mobility, why knee pain usually starts at the hips, core, and ankles, and the simple daily habits that keep you moving well as you age. Time Stamps: 03:59 Why yoga feels time-intensive 07:42 Why men feel out of place in yoga classes 09:51 Flexibility vs. mobility explained 12:15 The everyday movements that need mobility 13:33 Why mobility work is essential, not a bonus 14:41 Benefits beyond mobility: breathing, balance, pain relief 17:39 What makes Man Flow Yoga different 21:02 Why you shouldn't quit squats at 40 23:38 Knee pain starts at the hips, core, and ankles 25:30 Allan's ankle injuries and the mobility fix 27:16 Building yoga and strength into a weekly routine 29:33 Dean's 3 wellness strategies: mobility, mindfulness, connection Links: Dean Pohlman on YouTube (Man Flow Yoga): https://www.youtube.com/user/ManFlowYoga Man Flow Yoga app and membership: https://manflowyoga.com/join Better Man Podcast on Instagram: @bettermanpodcast Dean's book, Yoga Fitness for Men: https://amzn.to/4hJuZz5 Coach Allan's daily wellness tips newsletter: https://40plusfitness.com/tips The Wellness Roadmap (Coach Allan's book): https://amzn.to/3U1xEdn      

On this episode of the 40+ Fitness Podcast, Coach Allan breaks down the fight playing out right now in Washington, DC, between GLP-1 medications and peptides. The two keep getting mentioned in the same breath, but they sit on opposite sides of the evidence line. GLP-1s like semaglutide and tirzepatide are tested medications with known dosing and documented side effects. Peptides like BPC-157 and TB-500, the so-called Wolverine stack, are not approved for human use and live in a gray market built mostly on rat studies and anecdote.  Coach Allan walks through the recent FDA Pharmacy Compounding Advisory Committee panel that recommended approving 6 of 7 peptides even after the agency's own scientists raised safety concerns, and he points out what it means for you. Time Stamps: 02:54 GLP-1s and peptides, framing the fight 04:26 Peptides and the gray market 05:20 The cheating debate around weight-loss drugs 06:07 The peptides: AOD-9604, BPC-157, TB-500 07:00 Branding and hype: the Wolverine stack 08:50 How both sides market GLP-1s and peptides 09:54 RFK Jr. and what the FDA is for 11:04 Follow the science, not the phrases 12:57 Off-label prescribing and thin peptide data 14:34 Gray market and inconsistent manufacturing 15:47 The FDA compounding panel meets 16:32 FDA scientists warn against approval 17:43 The panel's conflict of interest and 6-of-7 recommendation 19:50 The Joe Rogan ivermectin parallel 22:20 Peptides, cancer risk, and personal caution 23:11 The N=1 experiment and its limits 26:33 Making the decision that's right for you   Links - Work with Allan one-on-one (a few coaching slots are open right now): [email protected] - 40+ Fitness: https://40plusfitness.com